Katz delivers PMA lecture

Portland — Alex Katz, longtime seasonal resident of Lincolnville and one of America’s foremost painters, will speak Wednesday, June 11, at 6 p.m. at the Westin Portland Harborview Hotel, hosted by the Portland Museum of Art’s Bernard Osher Lecture series.

Katz will discuss his career and decades-long connection with Maine. Tickets for An Evening with Alex Katz are $25, $10 for PMA members, available by calling 775-6148.

Katz is one of the most celebrated artists working today and has had hundreds of exhibitions during his long career. A selection of his paintings is currently on view at the Tate Modern, London, in its prestigious Artist Rooms series. In the past two years, Katz has had major solo exhibitions in the United States at the Colby College Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Yale School of Art; and abroad at the Albertina Museum, Vienna: the Museum der Moderne, Salzburg; and Turner Contemporary, Margate, as well as many other museums and galleries. He has received many awards and honors including the 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award from New York’s National Academy Museum, New York.

Katz was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1927, and studied at Cooper Union. In 1949, he received a Cooper Union scholarship to attend the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, which initiated his lifelong attachment to Maine. Katz divides his time between New York City and Lincolnville. The Portland Museum of Art has a number of paintings by Katz on view, and in 2013 the museum acquired its first Katz painting for the permanent collection, the 1965 work “Ada and Neil (Study for Lawn Party).”

The annual Bernard Osher Lecture Series is made possible by the Peggy and Harold Osher Endowment at the Portland Museum of Art and is generously hosted by The Westin Portland Harborview Hotel, with media sponsorship from 94.9 WHOM.